One for the snowflakes...
Chocolat author adds trigger warnings to her books
Alex Farber - Media Correspondent
Joanne Harris, author of the bestselling novel Chocolat, has begun adding content warnings to her books after comparing them to “wheelchair ramps”.
Readers are now told that Harris’s 1999 hit novel contains “spousal abuse, mild violence, death of parent, cancer, hostility and outdated terms for travelling community and religious intolerance”.
The 60-year-old announced the plans in April after a social media poll in which her followers were asked if they agreed that trigger warnings should be included at the start of books.
“It makes a lot of sense,” she said.
“Trigger warnings are like wheelchair ramps. They exist because some people need them. The fact that some people don’t take the stairs does not detract in any way from my experience, nor do I hang around the wheelchair ramp mocking those who use it, or telling them how much better it would be for them to be exposed to the climb.”
Harris’s website has been updated to reflect the fact that her fantasy Loki novels include “depictions of eating disorders” and “no consideration for the Marvel canon”, in reference to the Hollywood makeover of the Norse god.
Elsewhere, The Blue Salt Road contains “depictions of whale hunting’’ and The Little Mermaid contains “ableist and transphobic slurs”.
Trigger warnings.....
freespeechproject.georgetown.edu
